Her Dark Materials
by Demeter1
Summary: One moment can last forever. Akito and starbursts in front of her eyes.


**"Her Dark Materials"**

**Demeter**

**Disclaimer:** All rights and privileges of Fruits Basket characters, objects and plots are property and trademarks of Takaya Natsuki and associated parties. The author claims no legal responsibility for problems associated with using this work. The original story, relationships, and characters found within the fic are property of Demeter.

**Characters:** Akito?

**Notes:** spoilers up to ch.115

**Warnings:** more angst.

* * *

Akito knows there is no point in shouting for someone.

This is not a lack of strength, she notes, a small amount of irritation lacing its way through her veins. This is not because no one would come. She could scream and throngs would pour in from every direction, from below the kitchen where men and women slave to feed the numerous mouths of the Sohma family, from any number of bedrooms where the privileged and cursed rest in order to toss and turn in parody, from the countless corridors that trail over the estate like a labyrinth of secret alcoves and aging wood. She has hundreds of people at her disposal, hundreds who will bear arms to shield her from harm but her voice is a fading piece of cloth stuck, dry, in her throat.

Perhaps because it is the first time. Perhaps the similarities in eyes and expression knock hard on the head. Perhaps because Akito is twenty years old and this is her first time to feel soft hands wrap around her neck like _this_. The feeling is unfamiliar, a swath of red across blue. The hands are silk, soft and supple.

Akito's mind wanders. The past comes strolling around and she pokes, a bit inquisitive, at the years and months and days and hours which lead up to this moment. There are so many, she can grasp them like a handful of marbles. They slip and vie for attention and there are so few memories where these hands were not a part of. They point, full of accusation and betrayal, at Akira who should have known best. They leave handprints here, a suspicious crescent moon cut there. They run suggestive down a young man's chest and they are ragged and broken against a thin chest made thinner by death.

She wonders what will happen _afterwards_.

Will there be questions, shouts, tears? Will there be astonishment that these hands still exist, existed, didn't Akito fall out of a cabbage and stork basket? What would the funeral be like? Would they hold an elaborate ceremony, the same kind they had for Akira and all the predecessors before her? She might wear the purple robes that had been made the moment she'd stopped growing. They hang at the back of a room full of clothing she never wears and suddenly, she remembers there was gold thread stitched into the obi. It was a nice set, somewhat plainer than many of her other suits, but it was a lively color, it was a color she'd never wear outside, not even in front of Kureno or Shigure or...

Hands tighten.

There are strange, funny starbursts in her eyes and she can see the flickering of a thousand people dance across the room. Voices whisper and her dumb little ox tries to off her with betrayal and stupidity. His version, anyways. Akito doesn't bother to tell him that she's seen betrayal, true betrayal, and he really is more like the last straw in a broom battered by too much use rather than the full shock of hay. But he was one of the first and perhaps, she muses, it could have been for the best. Perhaps a rabbit made brave by a broken leash knew a way out was a way out even if the path was lined with barbed tripwires. Akito waits for the familiar wave of agony, but there has been so little joy for so long that she can hardly tell the difference. She wonders, if only for a moment, whether she deserved this. She can think of too many reasons and hair--

Hair spreads across a bed of flowers and the same color of ink and nighttime terrors spills and Akito can see that a little sheep, yes, her little sheep, had the right idea. But starbursts and rainbows are playing tricks on her mind and why would she ever think anything was her fault? Orange, too bright and too beautiful to belong to him but he has never tried to hide it, her poor wretched ugly cat. There are many promises and bets, so many she can't quite remember their purpose. Akito might have once tried to love such a cursed animal but the years have bled together and when was the last time there was anything other than fear and hatred and warped love? Can she love? It's yet another moment to ponder. Can Akito, patriarch of the Sohma family, be capable of loving anyone other than herself? But wait, _mogeta_ presses a furry kiss to her cheek and she looks up and his eyes are kind and black and gentle and Akito remembers that he's bought so many things for her. She wonders about his costs and where he would go to make such purchases.

She once read a book of his on the sly and it was destructive and perverted and salacious and maybe it was wonderful.

The dark eyes above her are twisted and filled by grief more pernicious than anything she ever knew and his _her_ voice is lost somewhere in the shuffle. She tries. Akito really does try. But there are so many other voices and they all say things about how she deserves this and she can't quite bring herself to ignore it. Right now, their voices are as clear as the hands around her throat and a rasp is all she can push out; perhaps her vocal cords are in protest along with her camellia-colored memories.

The hands stretch like a rubber band and Akito thinks about all the _afters_ and _what ifs_ and that _this is it_. After a few moments, there will be no more pain, no more wondering, no more restless nights. She would be no more one side or the other. Akito can see a none-future sling itself to her feet. Perhaps the black and white would leech itself from the world, _her_ world. She shuts her eyes and tries to welcome whatever end there is.

For one brief moment, Akito is free and flying above the clouds... and then the screams start, the hands are wrenched from her throat and she falls to the unforgiving tatami. Akito sees nothing but Ren being dragged away, her legs kick at the air ineffectually and Hatori pulls Akito up, almost roughly. Her face is dragged to face him and one sharp eye examines her. For what? For what is he looking? Akito doesn't know.

She must pass some test because he sighs - is it relief? - and sets her down, kind to a fault. A hand brushes quickly over her tender neck, rests a moment, too long of a moment and as he turns away, there is coldness to his eyes, but Hatori is always cold, and he barks for Ren to be placed back into her, her, her what, prison? sanctuary? room? Everything returns in a flood of frustration, her frailty, her pain, her betrayals and she swallows bitter pills like the candy she can't possibly have. The dull ache has returned and when Kureno steps to where Hatori is, Akito finds her voice and shouts them all down and out of her room.

Akito is strong, is important. She could have called for someone.

But she didn't.

**- fin -**


End file.
